評論

• gamedeal user

  Jul 4, 2014

  (Edited 2/21/2016, updated to reflect 4.0) Aside from the fantastic graphics capabilities, this is a very good engine for the price! It provides a lot of freedom and the workshop is a great feature that should be integrated into other engines the way it is in this engine. Haha, this might be a bit long but here are my pros and cons: Pros: -Graphics: this is likely something that will improve much more in the future, but what's already in the engine is great to be honest, especially since you can achieve a lot of performance with the deferred renderer since it lessens the performance hit of geometry and lights -Support: the engine is mainly a one man show, but the support from the development team and their (his) strong presence in the community is great -Shader Editing: it's very easy to edit shaders and the post-processing stack is very simple but effective -Price: I know $100 may seem like a lot, but with what you get out of this engine, it's well worth it -Polish: this engine is very easy and intuitive to work with (especially the drag-and-drop options) and CSG editing, which are the best CSG tools of any game engine I've used -Workshop: This actually sort of sets this engine apart from the rest since so many quality assets are in the workshop with a great and helpful community -License: The license is great for both the Workshop and the engine itself -Coding: I was hesitant about using Lua, but for me it's a great language for this type of engine, and it's pretty easy to put objects with Lua scripts into a scene without breaking other code. Also, it's super fast to test because it doesn't need to be recompiled. -Vehicles: This used to be a missing feature, but it now has been put into the engine, and the physics are very stable and realistic -Exporting games: This has been changed a lot since the first release. You can now publish files with encrypted folders to help protect assets and code. -Animation: This has also been changed a bit. Models imported can have additional animations imported from models with similar bone structures, which helps to reduce redundancies with animating. Also, there is a panel that allows for working with animations (such as extracting animations from other animations-this makes more sense once you start working with it). -Character controller: I forgot to talk about this, but it's become one of the most polished and powerful features of the program. This is a custom-made physics component for characters in the game and allows for pathfinding, realistic movement, and controlled physics. In short, while it isn't too flexible, it provides a great physics base for characters and the player. -Vegetation: the vegetation system is great, and in some ways it's innovative in it's implementation which means better performance Neutral: -OpenGL: most games today use DirectX, and that's fine but they are limited to Windows. OpenGL is roughly as powerful as DirectX from a graphics point of view. OpenGL can be used by Linux games, which is nice. Unfortunately, OpenGL for computers (non-mobile) are often overlooked by driver developers (notoriously AMD), and AMD often has bugs related to this. Usually they are sorted out, but this can be frustrating from a developer point of view Cons: -Hardware: this engine requires a lot in terms of hardware to create useful projects (of course this is a downside of a deferred renderer in general), but with that comes with great graphical potential -Water: the water in this engine is average in quality -No streaming: this is a big one if you want to do open-world games because you'd run out of VRAM Overall, I would definitely recommend this engine, especially since the development team behind it is very helpful and supportive of the community. IMPORTANT NOTES (read carefully): Some people may be confused by past documentation and think that this program can export Android and iOS. This is NOT true. These platforms were only in the early versions of LE 3, and they have since been completely dropped in favor of PC gaming. DO NOT buy this software if you plan to make mobile apps with it because you won't have the ability to do so. Also, download the demo BEFORE purchasing. If you have trouble running it, there is plenty of support in terms of links to various drivers, particularly for ATI and Intel cards (NVidia cards tend to work the best with Leadwerks). Both ATI and Intel cards tend to have drivers bugs often for Leadwerks. That being said, the developer does a good job at contacting ATI and Intel to get these bugs fixed and has provided links to earlier drivers that work well.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2014

  If you read this before the end of the 2nd December 2014, and you are wanting to be be able to write a 3D game, get this now. Its incredible value at 50% off. If you have and use visual studio and write code in C++, and want to use it to write a game, splash out and get the Standard version too. I bought mine in a previous sale, with -25% off, and have invested many hours in using this latest version during the beta testing of 3.3. There are lots of video tutorials on you-tube, which are really useful for a beginner to understand how to start to use Leadwerks. The Forum http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/ is a great community resource, which is always worth a visit when your stuck, answers to many of your questions can be found by searching in here. If its not already answered you can ask the community, and there are some really great people who have been using Leadwerks for years, including Josh (Leadwerks CEO) who respond with knowlegeable answers. The steam workshop is really improved in version 3.3 and the community provide free resources for you to use in your programs. For the indie edition you can even publish your completed game, or prototype onto the workshop for other Leadwerks users to try and comment on, this also gives you a count of the number of subscribers. In addition the latest feature of publishing games also gets you a web page for you to customise, and can create links to standalone zips of your completed game for non leadwerks users to try, though I haven't actually got to this stage yet. For those who want to create their own models, you can update Blender, with an export utility thats provided, and then make models and import them into Leadwerks. Other vendors such a WorldCreator can also be used to create landscapes and these can be imported using the RAW files, which you can then paint and alter in Leadwerks, or you can just create landscapes directly in Leadwerks. Many other proprietry programs can also be used to create models and can be imported into Leadwerks. Water effects can be found in the forums, I have recently been adding this to my Work in Progress. You can create your own textures, from photos, crop them to squares in GIMP 2.8, other photo editors also work, and either reflect them horizontally and veritcally to form a new tile, or for images like grass or mud simply use the Filters > Map > Make Seamless to get a tile that you can port straight back into Leadwerks. Then you can use Leadwerks to make a normal tile, that will give your tile 3D surface effect. There are hundreds of textures already availabe on the Workshop, provided by the community, in addition to the starter set you get with Leadwerks installation, so don't worry even if you don't yet have the artistic skills. You can paint your map with the workshop and built in textures to start with then simply replace the textures with your own as you make them, and you dont have to repaint the map to do so, as the painting is done by layering the textures. Simply replace one of the 16 textures in the terrain tool, with your own. If your not into landscapes you can use CSG brushes, ie basic geometry for builing your map, boxes, cones, wedge, cylinder and sphere, and compound geometry Arch, torus and tube. Or combine both methods. With Leadwerks you get an animated model, called a Crawler, which you can easily colour and size to your requirements. It comes with a script which can control its behaviour to some extent, and you can adapt the script to make them respond in slightly different ways. Once you are near to finalising your map, you can run a Build Navmesh tool, which will scan your map and mark out all the places that are navigable by the Crawlers. This can be viewed in the editor to see the pathways between places on your map. The Leadwerks engine automatically uses this Navmesh to control pathfinding for the Crawlers without having to code anything yourself. The Navmesh does take a few minutes to complete, on slower pcs, time to put the kettle on. You get 1 pistol as a starter weapon, other weapons are available in the optional (pay extra for) FPS weapon download, and there are some more free ones on the workshop provided by the community. You also have ambient lighing and detailed lighting to add to your scene, these can be incorporated inside models, like car headlights for instance, use spot lights inside the model, to shine out and use a point light outside the model to show the headlight shining. You can also add particle effects, called emitters, to your map and by tweaking the colours, make steam, or smoke, or lava blobs. Overall its a fantastic tool, and its has a royalty free commercial license builtin to it, so no more royalty payments need to be made to leadwerks, even if you go on to sell the game you make commercially. There are always things that can be improved, and Josh does a great job of taking Leadwerks forward adding features to the beta release, the latest version 3.3 has just gone live, I guess about 6 months between releases. This product does need some coding skills to get the most out of it, but if you don't code, you can still do many things like creating landscapes adding crawlers and still have a lot of fun. The FPS weapon pack is already to use and requres no coding skills to use it. The scrips that make the gameplay are available to look at and amend, so once you understand how things interact, you can start by changing some of the scripts values, such as walking speed, and see how the gameplay changes, many of these values can be made to appear on the scenes list of items, as each entry can have its own script tab and you can show the values being used and change them. I would reccomend having a decent PC, with a SSD drive, as this will save you a lot of loading time. I have an NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti graphics card and quite often get 60fps wondering around my levels. In ceartain areas though, through bad coding or design of a level can cause this to drop to 5 fps, but with a bit of tuning these bad areas can be brought back up to 15fps, without too much hassle, like for instance turning off shadows on the Crawlers, or reducing the number of particles used in an emitter from 9000 to 300, but making them much bigger. The workshop could do with some more animated models, with some nice movements, jumping, stagering, lunging, rolling etc. So if your an animater, your work would be a most welcome addition to the community workshop. Hope you enjoy your Leadwerks experience, I know I have.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 6, 2015

  Ok so after taking a break for leadwerks i decided to go back and give it another go, I wish i never the comunity is so hostile dont get me wrong there are a few good people there but that is by far outweighed by the bad. If you dont know all there is to know forget it they make you feel small and offer no real help. The softwere its self is great but missing a good few key fetures and there is alot of coding to do so its not as easy as it says. If it were to get a better forum with some good mods ect, it really needs a better structure there is no easy way to find things not alot of example stuff like scripts and if you ask for one or help with anything boy do you know about it.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 24, 2015

  My short time with Leadwerks and its Sockpuppets here on Steam. At first it looked promising to get a true alternative to Unity "on the cheap", in regards as annual subscription comparison to other engines vs up front fees. The reason for that is, indie developers are on extreme low to no budgets and calculate different than studios taking small risks, only, and are prepared to cut deals on a royalty basis when a game hits the shelves. Or one could spend little to no money for other engines (see below). The good: With under 100 quid, Leadwerks is in the indie pricelist acceptable with no royalties to pay. The Engine has a clean user interface and eveerything for most parts makes sense how to do things. Every newbie will manage to get around quickly how to use the controls in Leadwerks. The bad: Leadwerks' asset pipeline can be quirky when importing static or animated meshes via FBX (a caution to LightWave users). The asset creation tool should be at least Autodesk FBX convertion tool which is free of charge, before importing anything into Leadwerks. Another topic to address is textures with alpha - Leadwerks will not automate anything for you at this point, instead you have to fix everything yourself and depending on complexity, you can spend hours to get a tree look right. The ugly: Leadwerks comes in two flavours; Indie Edition (Lua Scripting language) and Standard Edition (Lua and C++). As such, this is where the Game Engine won't crack the shell to be one tool to rule them all. At least not with the API Documentation efforts been made so far. In fact, it's a disaster to read the API Documentation. Not in everyone's favor to get a skinny bone to chew on. Last but not least, Leadwerks Documentation includes old stuff, depricated or missing non-consistent with the current 3.3 version (including but not limited to like, there is no vegetation painter as opposed to a previous version, no screenspace ambient occlusion, no sample content for the special effects and shaders, glass refraction, not enough from this and not enough from that and overall nothing to offer but "learn Lua"). The bottom line: Leadwerks is not a game engine, but offers the potential to be one in the future (only time will tell). Suggestions to free royalty-free alternatives: - S2 Game Engine - free version for commercial use without royalties (AAA Graphics Engine) - NeoAxis Game Engine - free without limitations but no full source code access - Torque 3D Game Engine - MIT License with full source code UPDATE: The "Developer" of Leadwerks gave me a permanent ban, because I told the truth that Leadwerks is a rip-off. The graphics software doesn't offer a game engine you get. 1. Shaders: no, you can't write a GLSL, instead you have to port it over to Leadwerks to actually work. 2. Asset pipeline - if there is any, instead your FBX files get screwed up and you run into a loop 3. DOCUMENTATION !!! what a JOKE 4. and I could write volumes what a great mess Leadwerks is. 5. don't spend your money on it, get Unity 3D, Neoaxis, Torque, S2 Engine or the 20 quid deal with Epic Games UE4
• gamedeal user

  Feb 23, 2015

  I'm very disappointed with this software. It's incredibly basic, with simple add ons which IMO should come with the software, costing ridiculous amounts. The work people have done with previous versions has been practical thrown out, as it's changed so much with no backwards compatibility. So it seems little consideration is given to people trying to make things with this software. The only great things this has going for it is the royalty-free part. It is fairly easy to use too. I'm pleased I at least waited for the sale discount and opted to only get the lui version. You will also need the beta drivers to run this software if you have a ATI GPU. link Kindly put there in the developers responce.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 24, 2015

  I've spent about 2 months (mostly offline) working on and trying to figure out Leadwerks Engine. Now I decided to make a review. If you'd like to develop games on Linux, LE should be a good choice. Otherwise, it is ridiculous to use this engine. Graphics are not very good. Games made with LE look "old-gen". Scripting (Lua) is not as easy as they say. If you create a "game prefab" and then change value of a variable of its script in inspector, you have to create a new prefab with it to use it in a game map. That's insane. Writing your own shader scripts is really hard. I couldn't get how to code shaders in LE (with glsl) eventhough I create my own shaders in Unity (cg shaders). There are a few simple shaders and some special shader examples around but it is hard to create "your own style". It is easy to understand the logic behind usage of this engine but it is so difficult to create "something good"/"something unique". You can use post-screen effects easily but can't manage them in detail (unless you create your own ones). Occlusion culling is supported. This is only feature that I really like. I don't regret the money I spent for LE. I regret the time I spent on LE. Unity Free is much more better than LE eventhough the free version doesn't support some features like dynamic soft shadows, occlusion culling etc.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 18, 2015

  This is a pretty good package overall, but I'm going to say it's not for everyone. I'm a professional programmer with 20+ years, about 4 in the games industry. This is from a single programmer's perspective. Pros: * Streamlined. For a programmer who wants to work on gameplay design and development, most of the nitty gritty boring stuff is handled. Map format (level editor), resource loading/handling, 3d animation, robust OpenGL renderer, sound, integrated scripting are all here. You can really just focus on your designs. These boring, but core, features probably murder most upstarts. * Not a game maker. This isn't generic, confining, game maker software forcing you to work within the boundaries it provides. It's literally a toolbox/API full of the basic necessities you'll need to upstart a game project. * C++ add-on (Standard Edition DLC). Having this allows you to integrate anything into your project. It's mandatory in my opinion, but even so, it's a bargain at $99 (Indie Edition)+$99 (Standard DLC). I got both my packages on sale I think, so I basically paid $100 for the whole engine, which is asinine for the time it saves me for projects. * Solid Level Editor. Remember, this is not game making software. The editor works more like a level-editor for popular game engines, and it's pretty sleek. There's a few quirks with it, but it's production quality overall. Meh (not a pro, not a con): * Small Developer. This is a mixed bag. On one hand, the guy is pretty active and pretty responsive, and quite professional (in my experience). However, for features and bugs, it can take a while for things to get addressed. The software is pretty solid overall, but there's a few issues that have hung around without fixing yet and are kind of annoying. * Documentation. This could be better, but it works. I've found a few instances where somethings are missing/not explained, but overall, it's not too bad. The API docs are actually really good, I think. Examples are sparse, though, which is why I bring it up, and why I put it here. Can say pro just because of the API docs, can't say con just because examples are not very present. Which brings me to... * Community. Again, mixed feelings here. I love there's lots of writeups and youtube videos showing examples (that aren't present in the official docs). So it's kind of a community-based learning scenario. There's some really cool regulars that are very knowledgable and helpful. On the other hand, there's a handful of dimwits on the boards that seem to just troll/bash. I don't know if the developer just has enemies but there oft times seems to be a lynch squad out to prove how bad the engine is, and they want you to know it. It's distracting, and shouldn't be tolerated, yet in the limited time I've spent interacting on the boards, it's fairly persistant. Community would be a pro if there was a more established administration of the official boards. Otherwise, the community is just quite small and getting answers to questions can be very hit or miss (where the aforementioned docs are lacking). Cons: * Bugs and/or the "LE" way. This is not glitchy software by any means. My main gripes presently are the physics act weird out of the box (can be replaced with C++ edition or tweaking). Also, the model importer for complex texturing and animation key framing is rather particular. You will need to fuss with things outside the editor and implement a lot of 3rd party utilities, like FBX exporter, add-ons for blender, etc. Not very many "free" or testing models you download online will simply work, you'll have to tinker. There's kind of an "LE" way of doing modelling (to a minor degree). Once you learn this stuff it's not a big deal, but it sure can lead to hair pulling sessions. * Features. Some basic features that should be present aren't yet (decals, for example). These are on the horizon, but sometimes I fear version 4 (more $$$) will come before we see things like decals, which honestly, should have existed at release. Bottomline: If you or someone on your team is experienced in programming, this is a really good deal for a startup project. Most everything you need is here, and anything else you can add-on with a little bit of work. It's not a game maker, so if you are not a programmer (in any fashion), do not expect to drag and drop your way to a feature title. That's just not what this product is. It's more like an advanced programmer's toolbox. It is what I'd say "frontier" software, meaning, not everything is obvious and you will need to think on your feet for some things. For some reviewers who say the engine doesn't "look" good, please keep in mind, it only looks as good as your art. It's otherwise a really solid rendering/toolbox/API that takes out gritty, boring details game projects require, allowing you to focus on content creation. You will need to adapt to some of it's quirks, but so far, those only seem to be with a few subsystems. Once learned though, most of that is an afterthought. 8/10.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 5, 2015

  Update: Leadwerks just keeps getting better and better. Keep note that many of the reviews on this engine are relatively old now where, admittedly, some features were lacking - especially in comparison to how they are today. With many of the additional features, games no longer look as though they were released in 2004 but along the lines of graphics that games have today. The engine includes: * Vegetation painting (both ground and foliage) * Built-In asset store with both paid and free assets (you can also publish your own assets here) * The ability to publish your games for people to play on the Leadwerks Game Launcher (a free download on Steam) * The ability to export your game for upload to other sites, such as Itch.io, or to release on Steam itself * Support for fbx assets available from Unity or other asset sellers * Plenty of pre-made scripts for doors, items, weapons, player mode etc * An active community on the Leadwerks website. The forums are very helpful if you are stuck with something * Frequent updates which often include new features * VR compatibility * Built in post-effects you can easily add, such as bloom, ssao, ssr etc * Upcoming support for Vulkan Your creations with Leadwerks are royalty free and there is no subscription charge to use the software. Once you've purchased it, you don't need to pay anything extra. The basic version utilises LUA, and the professional version can also utilise C++. I can safely tell you that the developers are very friendly and helpful. There have been times I've been stuck with my projects and they've been able to help me with debugging. This engine is something I keep coming back to, and I genuinely enjoy using it. =Previous Review= I considered purchasing Leadwerks for a long time before I bought it. Now I wish I had bought it sooner. It's an excellent tool with a very friendly community. Constant updates from Josh (dev) make me feel secure that Leadwerks will continue to be developed far into the future. The Indie edition supports lua script, which I am finding to be a great language to start out in, and the standard edition supports C++. I love the fact that your creations can easily be uploaded to Steam for others to play (which even the devs will often try out and feedback on!).
• gamedeal user

  Nov 28, 2015

  I spent a good while (12+ months) reading up on Leadwerks and other game engines before I finally made my purchase. The deciding factors were native Linux support and royalty free licensing without an astronomical price tag. Other engines will deploy a game on platforms other than Windows, but may not actually be usable without installing the engine itself in Windows and that was a "no-go" for me. The UI is simple. You're not inundated with tons of tools resulting in hours upon hours of reading through documentation before you can create a particle emitter. In fact, the UI is so simple, I was able to create a basic obstacle course before I even bothered looking at the tutorials. Speaking of tutorials, while they are short, they explain what they set out to explain, how to do the thing in their title. I was also really impressed with the fact that, as simplistic as the scripting tutorials were, they can take someone with zero (LUA) scripting skills and get them to at least the point of usefulness (assuming they are using Leadwerks' API). In fact, part of the tutorials is that at the end, you have a working game. So essentially, you go from "zero" to semi-confident in as long as it takes you to read and follow along. That's not bad. Will I end up making a masterpiece game after only two weeks of use? Nope, even as an experienced polyglot software developer I still have plenty to learn. But, it's doesn't seem so unattainable of a goal to be able to put together some basic games, whether or not they are worth selling is a whole other ballgame. If you've always wanted to learn about game development but were put off by costs or complicated tools, then Leadwerks Game Engine is a good way to get started.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 29, 2015

  [b]Leadwerks is a semi easy-to-use and very powerful game engine[/b] written in OpenGL 4 with a deferred renderer. The engine is crossplatform between Windows & Linux, frequently updated, and has a very friendly and active community. With Leadwerks, you can create any game you want, be it an FPS game, 3rd person shooter, a puzzle game, or something super wacky, you can make it in the Leadwerks engine. [h1]Some Of The Great Features[/h1] The deferred renderer is the pride and joy in this engine, giving you the ability to easily add dynamic lights and/or static lights with realistic shadows instantly, no lightmap baking needed. CSG level editing (like Source Engine's Hammer editor) is fun and fast in the Leadwerks editor, allowing you to map out and create a level to test out pretty quickly. The engine is built upon OpenGL 4, making the engine crossplatform between Windows and Linux. A Mac version is currently in the works and should be out sometime in the near future. Another great feature wtih this engine is that it is Steamworks ready. This means if you get your project Greenlit, you are ready to rock n' roll publishing your game on Steam and take advantage of Steam's API without needing to add any plugins/additional API libraries to your project. [h1]Licensing[/h1] Leadwerks is by far one of the most affordable game development solutions out there, hands down. Leadwerks costs $99 per seat. That's it! No royalties! All you pay is one fee and the engine is yours to do whatever you want with (unless you use it to create another game engine, which you cannot do). You do not have to worry about a monthly fee or any royalty fees afterwards, this even applies to items in the Steam Workshop for Leadwerks - NO ROYALTIES! If you create a game that makes millions of dollars (I wish... ;)) that money is yours. There are addional add-ons to Leadwerks, like the Professional Edition (see next section for more info) and model packs. But these are just add-ons which are not required to make great games. If you work on a team, each team member needs their own copy of Leadwerks, there are no license sharing options available. If $99 is too expensive, then wait for a steam sale. Leadwerks usually goes down to $20 per copy. [h1]Leadwerks Game Engine vs Professional Edition[/h1] To note about the two versions of this engine, the regular version (Leadwerks Game Engine) is the base version. It allows you to program your game in LUA scripts which do not need compiling time and it gives you the easy-to-use game editor that allows CSG level editing, like you would find in the Hammer editor. The Professional edition is an add-on (DLC) that requires the regular verion, but gives you the ability to program your game in C++ in which gives you more power and the ability to download and use any other C++ libraries such as RackNet for networking and so on. [h1]GLSL Shader Support[/h1] Since the engine is using OpenGL 4, you are able to write your own (or download) GLSL shaders (vertex, Fragment, etc.). However, you need to convert them to use Leadwerks' variables if you just download a GLSL shader from a gamedev forum. You can see the variables here on the community wiki ([url=http://leadwerks.wikidot.com/wiki:shader-specification]http://leadwerks.wikidot.com/wiki:shader-specification[/url]) If you don't feel like writing shaders or you just don't understand how GLSL is written, no worries, there are plenty of people that are sharing their own custom Shaders on Steam Workshop and/or [url=http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/]Leadwerks forums[/url]. [h1]Is This For Beginners? Well...[/h1] Is this engine for novice game developers? Well... I do not think so. I say "semi" easy-to-use for a reason. This engine does require you to program in at least LUA script. Yes, it does have a tutorial for beginners and it comes packed with a couple game examples and templates (FPS example and marble game example) that you can work from when you create a new project, but I would say these are only examples/templates that still need to be built upon. If programming is not your forte, this would not be the engine for you. Also, the documentation needs work as there are many commands in both LUA and C++ that are not well documented or not documented at all, requiring you to search the forums on leadwerks.com in hope for a post already created and answered, but if you cannot find a forum post you can always ask the friendly community that are more than happy to help you out. With that said, the API in Leadwerks is one of the easiest to learn if you are willing to learn programming with LUA or C++. It still does take lots of work and patience to make a game, but that is anything in the software/game development field though, which should not surprise anyone. [h1]In Conclusion[/h1] If you are looking for a powerful game engine that has easy-to-learn scripting (LUA), CSG editing, Steamworks ready, cheap licensing, and all ran through an easy-to-use editor, I do recommend the Leadwerks Engine. The regular version (Leadwerks Game Engine) is the way to go. However, in addtion, if you want to squeeze more horsepower and flexibility out of your project with C++, I recommend you to pick up the Professional Edition Addon. This engine is truely great and will continue to grow for years to come. I am currently using this engine for a rogue-like, dungeon crawler game called The Adventures of Relic Rick ([url=RelicRick.com]RelicRick.com[/url]). I also see myself using this engine for many more future projects to come on [url=ToxinGames.com]ToxinGames.com[/url]. [h1]Teamed Developers, Please Note:[/h1] PLEASE NOTE: If you are working on a team, only people who will be coding the game in C++ are required to get the Professional edition, everyone else that are either designers and/or LUA scripters are required just to get the base version.